- Gerhard Zucker
Gerhard Zucker (1908 – 1985) was a German businessman and rocket engineer.
Born in
Hasselfelde , he first came to public notice in 1931, when he began to work on the problem of transporting mail by rocket. In 1933 he performed several experiments in theHarz and atCuxhaven . In 1934, he emigrated to the UK, where he attempted to interest the British government in his rocket.After a failed rocket demonstration for officials of the British
Royal Mail onJuly 31 1934 , he was deported to Germany, where he was arrested on suspicion of cooperating with the British. DuringWorld War II he served in theLuftwaffe .After World War II, he moved across the border to
West Germany , to the part of theHarz inLower Saxony , where he became a furniture dealer. He continued his rocket experiments until, at a rocket demonstration onMay 7 1964 on theHasselkopf Mountain nearBraunlage , an accident occurred which killed three people. This accident led to a ban on civilian rocket research inWest Germany , ending the rocket experiments of theHermann-Oberth-Gesellschaft (Hermann Oberth Society) and theBerthold Seliger Forschungs- und Entwicklungsgesellschaft mbH (Berhold Seliger Research and Development Society).In the seventies Gerhard Zucker once again began launching mail rockets.
A movie based on Zucker's attempts with mail rockets at Scarp was made 2004, called
The Rocket Post , starringUlrich Thomsen as Zucker.External links
* [http://www.astronautix.com/astros/zucker.htm Encyclopedia Astronautica - Gerhard Zucker]
* [http://www.postalheritage.org.uk/history/transport/air_rocket.html British Postal Museum - Rocket mail]
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